Let's Move On, Folks

First...I strive to be humble and everything, but the Valentine's Day blog made me laugh when I reread it this morning. I hate laughing at my own jokes, but I feel that this particular entry was amusing, nonetheless. I might start making that a more regular part of the entry here, or something similar. Once a week, I might look at a saint's feast day and give you the history of it. Certainly, St. Patrick will be one of the next in line.

Speaking of, I did almost buy a cat-in-the-hat-esque green and white hat yesterday while at Target buying chalky hearts for myself. I felt that I need an appropriately goofy hat if I plan on attending the Notre Dame/UNC game in Chapel Hill this October.

Anyway, let's move on.

Speaking of moving on, I have a message to Hoosier Nation: Let's move on, folks.

Look to the future, not to the past. It's not 1976 anymore. Or 1981. Or 1987. Or even 1992 or 1993.

Bob Knight did not resign from Texas Tech last week because he was tipped off by someone that Kelvin Sampson's days at IU were numbered. Who would have told him? The NCAA, run by Miles Brand, the man who fired him from IU? Or IU President McRobbie, who is little more than a pawn of Brand's in the first place? I doubt either man would secretly whisper rumors of the allegations brought against Sampson into Knight's ear. Unless Grima Wormtongue is employed by the NCAA.

The other thing? Seriously, drop the Knight is coming back to IU hopes. Do you remember the Simpsons where they did the retrospect on Maggie's birth? Do you remember how Homer left the power plant? That was essentially Knight leaving Bloomington, rolling down the window and tossing the Zippo on the wooden bridge.

Not only isn't it going to happen, but it shouldn't happen. Since I'm in the area, let's look at UNC. When Matt Doherty tried his best to make UNC into NC State, UNC didn't go back to Dean Smith to coach the program. Yes, Dean has his hands deep in the athletics department at UNC, but at the same time Dean wasn't fired from North Carolina for demanding some punk treat his elders with respect. Instead, they went with someone who had UNC ties and hired Roy Williams. That's worked out for them fairly well.

However, I don't feel this is a good idea for Indiana. They need to get away from the Knight coaching tree completely. This time, however, they need to make sure that whomever they bring on board doesn't have a pile of baggage coming with him.

My pick? Barack Obama. He's managed to wade through a political fight with the Clintons and look squeaky clean, and he's come up through the political ranks of Illinois without too much baggage, so that speaks of the man's character. Also, his brother-in-law coaches at Brown. Incidentally...one of my ancestors was married to the founder of Brown University. That makes me and Barack practically brothers. Maybe cousins.

Seriously, though, I think Indiana needs to take a long, hard look at themselves in order to figure out what they want to do. And then they should call Sean Miller at Xavier, who does get the official Crown of Thistles stamp of recommendation for next IU basketball coach. His "vice president" (or the second man I think that IU should look at) is Scott Drew. Drew is a young coach, but he'll be inheriting a program that's going to be suffering under sanctions for a few years. While IU gradually comes out of them, Drew can be learning and growing as a coach so that when the kiss of death has finally worn off, both Drew and IU can rise back to national prestige. Third in line is Mark Few, coach at gonzaga. He's so far down the line because I don't know if IU would want to pay to get him from gonzaga, plus it's not like former gonzaga coach Dan Munson worked out all that well for Minnesota.

Most importantly, IU needs to not even entertain the idea of bringing back Knight or one of his former players, such as Steve Alford. Roy Williams has worked somewhat well at UNC, but for every Roy Williams out there, there's a dozen Matt Dohertys.